Falling In Love With Film At The Rock Show

A wall of cameras greets visitors entering the steel and glass door of Bernie’s Photo Center. Not far from the bustle of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park and the Andy Warhol Museum, Bernie’s is the kind mom-and-pop camera store that once flourished in America. In its heyday, the store flourished by developing countless rolls of film. Today; however, the 64-year-old store is one of just a handful across the country that withstood the onslaught of digital photography long enough to start thriving again.

“Film sales are through the roof,” says store owner Bruce Klein, a veteran of the photo center since the 1980s. Klein says film sales at his store at up 400% since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kodak recently announced the hiring of 300 new employees to help meet demand for film. Meanwhile, Fujifilm recently passed Sony as the second most popular camera brand in Japan based largely on film camera sales.

“The reason for it has to do a lot with the pandemic,” Klein adds. “A lot of young people couldn’t go to work. What they did was go home and live with their parents. Then, they start cleaning up the house and find these 30 and 40-year-old cameras. A generation of people from 18 to their 30s wanted their parents to explain film and learn how to use it.”

People who grew up largely viewing photography through the lens of a smartphone began seeking a deeper connection to photography as an art form.

According to Klein, his shop became a hot spot for younger people seeking out vintage cameras like the likes of Canon, Nikon and Pentax. Anything with an old school, mechanical look began to fly off of the shelves. And the film itself began to climb in price as this trend echoed across the globe. 35mm camera film is now on average five times more expensive than it was four years ago. Some of the most popular variants, like Kodak’s revered Portra 400, can top $80 per roll. At times, Klein is only able to keep a few dozen rolls on hand at a time. Klein says Kodak and Fujifilm are especially difficult to come by.

“Film cameras are great,” adds Klein. “The meters are accurate. You have a different look than digital photos because the lenses have different coatings. Film has more of a 3D look to it whereas sometimes the digital photos will fall flatter.”

To put Klein’s theory to the test, I snag a 1980s Nikon FE2 from the counter and trot over to PNC Park to catch a rock show straight from the peak of analog photography. Dubbed “The Stadium Tour,” the show is a throwback to an era when film reigned supreme. Def Leppard, Poison, Joan Jett and Motley Crüe will serve as the test subjects for the resurgence of the photography format of their youths.

In past decades, some of rock n’ roll’s greatest photographs were captured using equipment similar to the diminutive, metal camera and manual lens draped around my neck. But as I enter a photo pit filled with other photographers sporting larger, modern cameras with faster shutter speeds and variable ISO settings that far out class the single ISO available in my black and white roll from Bernie’s, a few skeptical glances are cast my way.

Back at Bernie’s, Klein had assured me that the setup in my hands—a couple of rolls of film along with an 85mm f/2.0 lens—was more than adequate to document a rock show. In the moment, I feel unsure. Though I’ve photographed concerts, wildlife and travel for well-known publications for years, I’ve never done so without the safety net of a memory card. Miss a shot shooting digital? No problem. Take another one. They are limitless. Miss a shot with film? Better make the next one count.

As the 38,000-seat PNC Park, the home of Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates, began to fill with fans who had purchased tickets for the tour prior to the pandemic, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts kick things off. A few quick clicks of the old Nikon’s shutter reveal that I have very little idea what I am getting. I can see the camera’s auto-metering system working and I can feel the shutter release, but without an on-site photo lab there is no way to know whether or not the shots are usable.

In the old days, rock photographers would have had an entire set to dial-in their gear; but thanks to a widely adopted “three song” rule supposedly initiated by an exasperated Bruce Springsteen, modern concert photographers are usually limited to just three songs at the beginning of a set to get their shots. This means meters, shutters and other variable settings ideally need to be dialed-in before the band comes on—a relatively tall task with limited film experience.

By the time Bret Michaels and Poison hit the stage, the sonic reverberations of C.C. DeVille’s six string, electric onslaught are coursing through the camera frame. Flummoxed by my nine minutes of trial-and-error with Joan Jett, I double down on Poison and decide to let the shutter fly recklessly. DeVille and Michaels fly around on stage like men possessed by the glam metal glow of the 80s, forcing my fingers into a frenzy of miniature adjustments to the manual focusing ring on my lens.

Unlike digital photography, each press of the shutter feels like I am adding permanence to the memory.

Michaels has a way of energizing a crowd that feels rare even among legitimate rockstars. Amped by the hometown performance from Poison, the throng of spectators are whipped into a booze and boom-filled fury that rollicks on for several more hours to the sounds of Def Leppard and Motley Crüe. As for my experiment with a form of photography perfected before I was born? I won’t know the results for weeks.

Though Klein and the team at Bernie’s Photo Center still develop film, I opt to lean on Indie Film Lab. The Montgomery, Alabama-based film developer processes film negatives into digital scans like the ones in this story. The advantage for novice film photographers like me is being able to lean on a team of photo development pros to fine tune under or overexposed photos (a common mistake among beginners) into something passable. Customers then have the choice to order prints of those scans or simply ride with the digital interpretation of their negatives. They process film from everything from professional grade cameras to disposable cameras.

Back at home, I place an order with Indie Film Lab online and mail my precious roll of concert photographs off via USPS. This, too, feels markably different from copying a memory card onto a hard drive. Instead of producing copies of my work instantly, I entrust the government to safely deliver the only copy in existence to the lab that will finally show me what I actually shot.

Weeks go by, but finally an email from the lab comes through. “Scan day is the best day,” it reads. And it’s right. The result of my gamble on film is a series of imperfect photographs that, true to Klein’s wisdom, do feature a depth and feel entirely different from their digital counterparts. As I scroll through the gallery of images from The Stadium Tour, it’s easy to see why Bernie’s Photo Center is back in demand after decades of down time. I understand why Kodak is on a hiring spree and a new generation of photographers is forsaking the sleek shine of digital for filters and actual negatives that conjure the feel of a more tangible reality.

In a time when society can feel more disconnected than ever, film photography is once again helping life feel reel.